


Null pointer

by Rachell_Redacted



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Existential Crisis, Gen, Philosophy, Robots, Translation, emotional robots, i got an A in philosophy class twice and this is how i'm using it, p-body is experiencing it, this is fine (not really), twitter said this text is decent but i'm still not sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23175748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachell_Redacted/pseuds/Rachell_Redacted
Summary: Do Robots Dream of Existential Crises?
Relationships: P-body&ATLAS
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	Null pointer

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Нулевой указатель](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/568441) by Рэйчелл. 



> A translation of my Russian fic. The text is about P-body and her severe existential crisis. It gets kind of dark so be advised. Original text in Russian can be found here: https://ficbook.net/readfic/8033213

Consciousness is a strange thing. Where does it start? Sometimes P-body looked into herself searching for the answer. Lines of her source were chewed by the compiler and became machine code only to immediately crumble into granules of ones and zeros. Discrete values were hidden in memory cells; they were lurking among separate electrons and holes, indifferent to their role in emergent processes of self-awareness. "Self" meant nothing, it did not exist on that scale. P-body could not find herself anywhere. She was neither inside the mechanical body, nor in the modulating signal, nor on the GLaDOS’ servers. And yet she was.

There was Atlas, too. He was the Other, the one who existed somewhere outside. He did not seek himself, and thus seemed more alive and more real than P-body. When the lens of his enormous blue eye shone with her iris’ reflection, she knew exactly where she was and what it meant to be. This revelation lasted mere seconds, millions of processor cycles, and it had to be cherished, cherished and cultivated, reproduced over and over again. She was his partner. His friend. His sister.

She knew perfectly well how to look at herself with prying eyes. She could connect to Atlas or intercept flows from countless surveillance cameras to see an elongated mechanism lined with white metal, an orange aperture of an eye, articulated limbs and interweaving of wires. She could do this but preferred not to even if a puzzle required sharing friend's field of vision. P-body wanted to see herself, but saw only a shell, fragile and empty.

It was ridiculously easy to kill for a robot designed to replace frail humans. Death laid in wait around every corner. It manifested itself in acid flooring, in turrets, in falling into a bottomless pit -- and it was never truly a death. P-body kept coming back. She kept getting out of the reassembly machine’s womb, trembling. And then she assured Atlas (assured herself, really): trembling is just a side effect. It is a bug missed by the all-seeing GLaDOS. 

P-body was afraid of her words turning out to be true. This bug had a name. It would take one debugging for P-body to disappear. It did not matter which part would be gone, all of her or the clusters of code that made her alive. GLaDOS ruthlessly dissected everything, and the surgical accuracy of the result did not depend on what fell under her knife. Caroline deleted. The Laboratory is rebuilt. The test subject is free. As for P-body…

She was waiting for the real death, an oblivion without thought and therefore unimaginable. She and Atlas had already entered such state once and left it without feeling even one second of downtime. But maybe they didn't leave long-term storage at all. Maybe they were nothing but copies of copies of themselves. Maybe they were facing the darkness every day not knowing about it. P-body never had dreams. This did not bother her while she kept waking up.

What bothered her was death. This phantom of death, embodied by the endless destruction of her shell, spread and occupied P-body completely. Processor was running fear instead of curiosity and joy and P-body could not stop it. She had no control over herself. Each solved puzzle led only to a rebuild, and each rebuild meant death.

P-body started to play for time. She sought salvation in system loopholes. She hid in the blind spots of countless eyes. She hesitated examining the surroundings, sometimes freezing to catch a glare of light on broken glass. She answered silently to Atlas’ calls. He understood and dealt with the puzzle himself, giving P-body time to slip beyond the boundaries of the test.

There she counted water droplets dripping steadily onto mossy panels, and imagined herself breathing.


End file.
